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RAAA on disbandment of 457 visas -

By RAAA CEO Mike Higgins, via the Oz: 

Unintended consequences of 457 visa changes could ground airlines

REX have invested heavily in a pilot training school. Picture: Grahame Hutchison.

• Mike Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM April 28, 2017
  

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection issued a media release on April 18 announcing the abolition and replacement of the Temporary Work Visa (457). The document includes about 20 reforms, summarised in dot points. The Regional Aviation Association of Australia agrees with about 85 per cent of these.

The RAAA welcomes the government’s review of all programs from time to time to ensure they remain fit for purpose, have not drifted in scope and still address the initial problem. However, the published changes have some serious unintended consequences for many regional airline and charter operators. In a nutshell, pilots and avionic engineers are now totally excluded, while airframe/engine engineers are only eligible for temporary visas without any access to residency, which makes it virtually impossible to employ them.

Examples include Chartair, a large operator in the Northern Territory. Since November 2015, they have had a massive turnover of pilots — of the 31 crew with the business at that time, only four of them remain.

They have lost 12 experienced pilots to large Australian national carriers in the past 12 months alone. The large Australian carriers don’t see an end to this recruitment drive any time soon, with a well-known international carrier recruiting some 1200 pilots by years end. The internationals recruit experienced pilots from the large Australian carriers and they in turn recruit experienced pilots from our member organisations. Chartair currently have parked three of their biggest aircraft because they don’t have crew for them!

Chartair is not unique in its role within the industry. Most Regional Aviation Association of Australia member airlines take in entry-level pilots and offer them a career path through small single pistons, small twins, up to single and twin turbines. Although they are all too aware of their position in the aviation food chain, they are proud of their record in providing high-quality pilots for the Australian national carriers. However, they are at that stage where our ranks at the upper middle and senior pilot levels are so depleted that overseas candidates locked in for four years on a visa were about the only solution to get them through this crazy phase of recruiting by the major carriers around the world.

Therefore, they currently have seriously limited capabilities in-house for check and training and need desperately to bring in contractors to cover these vital roles. However, with the changes to the 457 visa they will not be able to sponsor these pilots to undertake vital roles for the survival of their businesses.

Perhaps the largest (in terms of number of aircraft) RAAA member is Regional Express and they may have the most compelling case. REX have invested heavily in a pilot training school and take most of the Australian graduates into their airline.

The international and Australian national carrier recruitment activity mentioned above has been so intense that this member soon won’t have a sufficient number of experienced captains to continue the training of the first officers. So we will see aircraft and first officers grounded because they can no longer employ direct entry captains, thanks to the 457 changes.

In the mid-1970s Qantas would routinely train over 200 aircraft maintenance engineers per year, and I was fortunate to be one of them. They now train 15 per year. This is not a criticism of Qantas, as their engineering business model has had to change over the intervening period due to changes in technology and a host of other reasons.

The fact is, though, that the once vibrant training ground has all but vanished. It is now incumbent on the smaller end of town to take a more active role in producing engineers.

This is widely recognised and commendable efforts are being made by industry. However, a combination of ‘‘centres of excellence’’ (silos) within both the federal and state governments, with no single controlling mind, has resulted in a gridlock where it is not possible for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to issue licences to graduating apprentices.

The RAAA has been campaigning for some time and is working very closely with the Australian Aviation Maintenance Repair and Overhaul Business Association, the Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers association, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and soon the federal and state education departments to address this situation. So it was pleasing to read a recent release from the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport on Aviation training issues.

The document refers to the recent Aviation Workforce Skills Study which clearly articulates a need to ‘‘develop practical and workable solutions to overcome any shortfalls in the supply of professionally trained staff’’. ‘‘I look forward to working with the Department of Education and Training.”

Commendable indeed, yet at the same time another arm of the government makes these breathtaking changes to 457 that are designed to kill jobs and growth in our sector of the industry. The RAAA remains willing and able to be a part of the solution and would welcome an urgent review of these new arrangements.

Update: REX on 457 visa disbandment.

Via the ABC online...

457 visas: Airlines warn loss of foreign pilots could 'tear apart' fabric of regional communities

By Gavin Coote
Posted Fri at 5:48pmFri 28 Apr 2017, 5:48pm


Photo: Regional Express is warning the scrapping of the 457 visa may force it to axe some services. (Graham Tidy: Reuters)

Regional aviation operators are warning that a decision to axe the 457 temporary working visa could spell the end for some air services in regional Australia.

The Federal Government is introducing a new temporary skilled visa program, reducing the number of eligible occupations.

Under the changes, pilots would no longer be eligible.

Regional Express (REX) said it relied heavily on the 457 visa to attract experienced captains due to a drainage of Australian pilots going to work at bigger carriers domestically and abroad.

Chief operating officer Neville Howell said it could have dire consequences for regional Australia.

"On the thinner routes, some of the marginal routes that we're operating, it could very well mean that we have to cease those operations or indeed reduce the frequency," Mr Howell said.

"That has all sorts of implications to the people in those remote communities."
Mr Howell would not say which routes could be potentially scrapped.

"I don't want to start hypothesising and jumping to conclusions in terms of which routes in particular, but suffice to say on some of the runs where we're not getting a great deal of passengers we would have to look at that first of all," he said.

"The other runs like, for example Orange and Griffith and so forth, those numbers are fine. But it is the thinner routes where our passenger uptake is not particularly good."

Call for immediate moratorium

Mr Howell said the Government needed to place an immediate moratorium on the changes until a well-considered replacement list of occupations was drawn up.
"If indeed changes need to be made, okay. But to just completely cut the legs off without consultation it doesn't make a great deal of sense," he said.

"It will undoubtedly tear apart the socio-economic fabric of many of the smaller regional cities that are heavily reliant on our services for medical, educational and business links.

"It's mindless policy-making. There is a shortage of that skilled labour."

In March, REX grounded six of its aircraft after a plane travelling from Albury to Sydney lost one of its propellers mid-air.

Why the 457 visa is going


After two decades and tens of thousands of visas, the 457 visa category has been abolished. But what was it and why does this matter?

The Regional Aviation Association of Australia echoed REX's concerns, saying Northern Territory operator Chartair had already grounded three of its largest aircraft because of a shortage of captains.

But its CEO, Mike Higgins, stopped short of backing calls for a moratorium.

"What we're saying is that we're happy to work with the Government to do a review," Mr Higgins said.

"We feel that while there are some professions that are exempt, for example real estate agents, hairdressers and so forth, it's breathtaking that captains and aircraft engineers who are in dire shortage have been excluded.

"It's going to cause a great harm. We're very hopeful that we can sit down and have a sensible discussion about the way forward, particularly with experienced captains."

List of Jobs Removed From 457 Visa List

 



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List of Jobs Removed From 457 Visa List
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